Make Your Home Smarter
“Smart Home” is a term that describes the automation of buildings. This involves the control and automation of lighting, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, etc. The control of sound- and security systems is also an aspect of a smart home.
Many companies offer various solutions. This article covers some aspects of home automation and compares different solutions. The article focuses on lighting systems and audio systems, because I use both.
Smart Lighting
Smart or connected lights offer the possibility to control light bulbs, downlights and LED stripes using your smartphone or tablet.
Most vendors use a protocol called “ZigBee” to control the bulbs. Therefore, a so-called bridge (comparable to a router in a WiFi network) is used. Smartphones and tablets can connect to this bridge via WiFi network or a web service. The bridge is the central control unit and manages the configuration of all lights. Some other solutions offer Bluetooth-based connectivity. Bluetooth-based solutions don’t need a bridge but they also lack of a central control unit.
Philips Hue
Hue is a very popular system. (I think it is the most popular smart lighting system, at least here in Austria.) It uses a bridge and the ZigBee protocol. (See figure 1, the second device from the left.) The Hue bridge can technically manage up to 63 lights — but Philips recommends to manage only up to 50 lights, which should be enough too. Hue supports also non-Philips lights, which means that you can also add Osram Lightify bulbs to your Hue bridge. Philips tried to disable the third party support with a firmware update, but they re-enabled the support for Lightify bulbs after complaints from their customers. (Many Hue customers use a mixed infrastructure with Hue and Lightify components.)
Beside the lights, the Hue bridge can also manage other components: Tap switches, dimmer switches and motions sensors. This is great, because it gives you the opportunity to control your lights without the need of a smartphone or tablet.
Osram Lightify
Lightify is also a very popular system. Osram offers many different lights. Including bulbs with an E14 socket and LED downlights. The Lightify bulbs are compatible with Philips’ Hue bridges. That means that you can integrate them in your existing Hue network, but Osram also offers an own Bridge called Lightify Gateway.
I use a Hue bridge and also have a Lightify bulb with an E14 socket, because Philips does not offer bulbs with E14 sockets. In my opinion, the Hue bulbs dim a little bit smoother. I testet it wit an E27 Hue bulb and an E14 Lightify bulb, paired them and turned them on and off: The Hue bulb dimmed smooth from 0% to 100% and then back from 100% to 0% while the Lightify bulb did it a little bit juddery, especially at the end of the dim process. And at least with my room arrangement the Hue bulbs seem to have a better signal strength. I was not able to control a Lightify bulb in the kitchen, but I had no problems with a Hue bulb at the same position.
Elgato Avea
Elgato’s Avea bulbs don’t need a bridge — they simple use a bluetooth connection to the controlling smartphone or tablet, which makes the system cheaper — at least at first sight.
Avea blubs with E27 socket are very voluminous. I tried to use it in one of my ceiling lights, but it was to bulky to screw it in. Compared to Hue bulbs, they start very slow. It takes a second till they light up. Hue bulbs light up immediately after they have been connected to the electric socket.
Smart Sound Systems
Wireless speaker systems use a wireless protocol (e.g. IEEE 802.11 WiFi or a proprietary protocol) to stream music to the speakers. Speakers can be grouped so that you can play pop music in the living room while your partner listens to classic music in the bath room.
Sonos Play
The Sonos Play family is one of the leading wireless speaker systems. You can use Sonos Play speakers with your existing WiFi network, but Sonos offers another solution too: Just connect a Sonos speaker (or Sonos bridge) to your router (using an Ethernet connection) and it creates an own wireless network. Non-Sonos devices use your existing WiFi network and Sonos uses this separate network, eliminating interference and increasing range. (As far as I know each speaker acts as a repeater. This ensures a good signal strengh, even if you wouldn’t have a good signal strength with your normal WiFi network.)
Sometimes WiFi just isn’t enough. Some people have problems streaming movies or surfing the web at home because their network is crowded with too many wireless devices, and others have rooms too far away from the router that don’t get a WiFi signal at all. If this sounds familiar — you can always plug any Sonos product into the router or buy a BOOST to create a dedicated wireless network just for your Sonos speakers. — Sonos Explained
This is, beside the very good app, one of the benefits of Sonos. But there are also some drawbacks: The entry level speaker Sonos Play 1 has only a wireless or wired network connection and a power cord. There is no AUX input and Sonos’ system is relatively proprietary.
Denon Heos
Heos is Denon’s wireless speaker system. They tout with over 100 years of experience — Denon was established in 1910. The entry level Heos speaker is more expensive than Sonos’ and the speakers of other competitors. But the Heos 1 offers some really cool advantages: It has an AUX input and supports bluetooth connections. The GoPack is an optional battery pack. It includes the “Splashguard” splash water protection (IPX4). This makes the Heos 1 perfect for outdoor activities, even around swimming pools.
Other Automation Aspects
As mentioned above, there are many other aspects of home automation: You can automate your heating system or your air condition, use wireless security cameras that recognize every face that they “see”, and so on… Nobody needs such systems — but they are nice to have.
